


In A Rich Man's World

by intheforest-hides-a-light (stinatinde)



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Redemption II
Genre: Angst, Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook (Red Dead Redemption 2), Complicated Relationships, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, High Honor Arthur Morgan, I always write about female characters who don't receive enough screentime, Love, Lust, Mild Sexual Content, Secret Crush, Sexual Tension, Unhealthy Relationships, Video Game: Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stinatinde/pseuds/intheforest-hides-a-light
Summary: She could feel him pulling away day by day. It all started with the Blackwater job. He’d spend his days pacing in their tent like she wasn’t even there, just thinking, thinking, thinking. Occasionally he’d head to the fire, or layout plans with the boys over a beer, or lean against the tent frame for a smoke. Like petals falling from a rose, one by one the little things that made Molly so happy started to peel away. The first thing to go were the kisses goodnight. Then, the good mornings. There had never been any “I love yous”, but Molly supposed if there were that she would lose those too.----A short examination of Molly O'Shea and her unraveling relationship with Dutch van der Linde. Gets a bit steamy.
Relationships: Molly O'Shea/Dutch van der Linde
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	In A Rich Man's World

**Author's Note:**

> Like the tags say, I am always drawn to writing female characters who do not get enough screen time.  
> I felt like writing something for Molly that humanized her a bit and gave her more of a voice. I usually write in first person, so we are experimenting a little with the third person omniscient perspective while strongly favoring Molly's character. 
> 
> Intended to be a one shot, but I am open to writing more if there's demand! Lmk in the comments <3 hope y'all enjoy.

Molly watched Dutch light his cigar as she started undressing. His eyes were already in his book. 

Her red curls, matted and unattended to, fell from her black bonnet as she untied it at the neck. She shook her head violently, freeing her fiery mane, and tossed the damp garment to the side of the tent, followed closely by a green scarf. With each article of clothing she discarded she felt more and more like herself. The cold weather of Colter had made her bitter. She detested the ice and the snow. It reminded her all too well of the stories her grandmother told her of the Great Famine that happened long before she was born. Molly never knew hunger like that. She tore off her itchy wool coat and threw it to the floor as if completely ungrateful for the warmth it provided her. 

The truth is that her chill ran deeper than the air around her. It penetrated her skin. She was cold on the inside. Her eyes kept looking back over at Dutch, watching the end of his cigar glow with each inhale, and the stream of smoke that left his lips with each exhale. She kept waiting for him to look back. Instead of being happy to see him so at peace, she felt herself being eaten away by neglect. 

She heard Pearson call from the other end of the camp. “Stew’s up!” He proclaimed. 

Molly wasn’t hungry. She was starving for touch. 

Dutch rose at the call for food. He stretched his back from side to side before setting his book down on the chest. 

“I’m getting old, Miss O’Shea.” He muttered without a glance.

She had stripped down to her chemise and corset already, her clothes a messy pile taking up a good deal of floorspace in the tent. 

When he heard no remark, Dutch turned around. He saw the careless mess that Molly had made, and took to scolding her for it.

“You got a maid coming to clean this up?” He asked sarcastically, marking the start of his reprimands. 

Molly sat herself on the bed and looked up at him with indignance, her spine held straight by the whale-bone corset that caged her waist down to a slim twenty three inches, or so it was the last she had checked. 

Dutch took a few heavy strides towards her. “Now, I know you’re accustomed to the finer side of life, but I also know I’ve told you a few too many times to keep your stuff in order.” He sighed. “Clear up the mess. And put some clothes on before coming out to eat.”

“I’m tired.” She said. Though she longed for affection she wished she didn’t have to beg for it. Molly rolled her eyes and picked a corner of the floor to look at, the one farthest from Dutch. Why didn’t he understand her needs? 

“Do you hear me?” He asked. 

“I’m cold.” She added another complaint.

“Then get dressed and get some stew.”

“I don’t want a spoonful of that slop.” Molly said.

“Well what  _ do _ you want?”

Before she could give an answer, the cloth that marked the entrance of the tent parted. It was Mister Morgan, and he looked a mess. 

“Food is up Dutch—“ He caught a glimpse of Molly’s nearly naked figure and turned away immediately. “Oh, excuse me, Miss O’Shea. Forgot to, erm, knock.” He knew full well that he couldn’t knock on a tent. But at least he had the decency to apologize. That was more than Molly could expect from most of the men at camp.

“Be out in a minute, Arthur.” Dutch said. He didn’t add that he was busy dealing with his mistress, as if a woman was the biggest hindrance for a man like him, but Molly felt it in his voice. She could feel him pulling away day by day. It all started with the Blackwater job. He’d spend his days pacing in their tent like she wasn’t even there, just thinking, thinking, thinking. Occasionally he’d head to the fire, or layout plans with the boys over a beer, or lean against the tent frame for a smoke. Like petals falling from a rose, one by one the little things that made Molly so happy started to peel away. The first thing to go were the kisses goodnight. Then, the good mornings. There had never been any “I love you’s”, but Molly supposed if there were that she would lose those too. 

“I miss you.” She said once Arthur had gone. “It’s like I’m not even a person anymore. I don’t know if you think of me at all.”

“We needed that money. Badly. Now we need to figure out where to get more of it.”

Molly shook her head. “That’s all you talk about, isn’t it? Money, money, money!”

“I know it might be a hard thing to wrap your head around when you grew up in want of nothing. But I am not a rich merchant like your daddy was. I’ve got more things to think about.”

“But do you ever think about  _ us _ ? Do you see me in your future?”

“I don’t think that far ahead.”

He might as well say he never thought of her at all.

“You do when it comes to money.” Molly spat bitterly. “Go eat with your friends and those sluts. I’m going to bed.”

“It would do you good to eat something.”

“I don’t care, Dutch. I’m going to bed.”

He gave up on her easily, leaving the tent with a sigh.

She didn’t know what to do with herself in the silence. She looked at herself in the mirror propped up against the tent frame and regretted buying such a dark lip shade. It was not quite as becoming of her complexion as it was when she tried it on. Her high-society mother back home would have frowned upon her if she saw her in this state. Molly sighed at herself. Where was the natural pink in her cheeks? She cupped her face with her hands. Was her skin dry? She kneeled on the floor and began searching her trunk for a jar of cream. Her folded clothes soon turned to a heap of velvet, silk, taffeta and lace. It was not there. She came across her hair brush and began yanking it through her messy locks. She worked the bristles angrily. Tears began to bubble up in her eyes from the sharp self-inflicted icy pains on her scalp. She wiped the lipstick off her mouth with the back of her hand. Her hair now brushed into a voluminous mass, her face free of deep red, her body stripped down to her corset, chemise, and drawers, Molly saw some of her youth return. But was it enough for Dutch Van der Linde?

He was not the sort of man her father would have wanted her to marry. Not that they  _ were  _ married. Not that they  _ would _ marry. But it wasn’t like she didn’t wish and pray for it either.

Memories played before her like slides at a picture show. More than a month’s journey came back in just a few flashing glimpses. Molly left her homeland engaged to a distant cousin she didn’t want to marry. She left behind her ring and a note apologizing for the expense of her wedding dress. Other than that, she left without an ounce of regret, for the time at least. Molly snuck out of the grand O’Shea house in the dead of night. The coach took her to the dock, where she boarded a ship heading toward America. Arriving in New York, she hopped on a westward bound train and took it as far as it would go. Stepping off the locomotive with her suitcase in hand, she trudged her white boots through the muddy streets, following the sound of a fiddle and hands clapping in time with its tune. She entered the swinging doors of the saloon, and all heads turned to the disheveled debutante with her air of luxury and exquisite figure. The working girls glared in envy. The men stared in dreamlike longing. She strutted up to the bar and asked in her most charming, accented voice for a room, a meal, and a shot of whiskey.

As her gloved hands fussed to open her coin purse, a hand with ringed fingers and a cufflinked wrist slid forth a set of crisp dollar bills. Her eyes followed the arm up the black coat sleeve to the face of a dark and handsome stranger, whose eyes sparkled with danger and promise. 

She left Ireland looking for herself and instead found Dutch van der Linde, a man in which she was now losing herself all over again. With Dutch came the life of Dutch, a sinful mirage of anarchic dreams, idyllic fantasies, and an insatiable appetite for freedom. Molly succumbed to the thrill, breaking all boundaries of her Catholic upbringing to live as Dutch Van der Linde’s lover. At times like these, she couldn’t remember why.

Molly laid her head down on the pillow that smelled like him. Her discomfort was no match for her exhaustion, and she fell asleep within minutes. 

Molly awoke to the sound of Dutch’s stumbling steps. In her sleepy delirium, she smelt the sweet odors of tobacco, firewood, and whiskey, and noticed the vague shape of her lover: a white shirt coming untucked, a few buttons undone, the near-end of a cigar in his hand. As her vision came into clarity she noticed his long hair, shiny with grease and pomade, coming out of its usual slicked-back style. After putting out his smoke, Dutch leaned against the tent post and struggled with his boots. A campfire song was stuck on his lips. His voice pleased her ears, and for a moment Molly forgot that she was ever angry. She nuzzled her face into the pillow, trying to hide her smile. 

Finished with his boots, Dutch sat down beside her on the bed. With his free hand he stroked her back, feeling the bones of her corset. 

“Wouldn’t you sleep better without this on?” He asked, speech lazy. 

Molly felt goosebumps raise on her arms. She was grateful for his warm hand in the cool nighttime air. 

“My mum always said that sleeping in it kept her slim.” She said with a yawn. Her lungs expanded as much as they could in their cage.

“Slim?” He asked, feeling the curve of her tightly cinched waist. “You’re getting thin, Molly dolly.”

Molly rolled onto her back to look up at Dutch. He didn’t look her in the eye. He took in the delicately freckled flesh of her décolletage and ran his greedy hand over her corset’s metal eyelets. “Let me help you out of this.” He said. 

Her longed for affection at last. Her lips curled up. She rose from the bed and swung a leg over his lap, draping her arms about his neck. She heard him chuckle in that way that made her cheeks flush. He placed his lips on her neck and breathed her in.

“You’re wearing the one I bought you.” He said regarding her perfume.

She was already losing herself in his touch. “Mmhm.”

After a long wet kiss he set to work opening the corset. In his drunkenness he struggled, not understanding that, in order to bring the pieces apart, he had to pull them together. A typical man, he met the difficulty by applying more force in opposite directions, trying to tear the thing off her.

“You’re going to break it, you beast!” She scolded.

“Then I will buy you a new one.”

“With  _ what _ money?”

“I will find it somehow.” He grinned. “I always find it somehow.”

Molly realized that there was always plenty of money when a man wanted something bad enough. She also realized that there was plenty of time.

“This one is made of whalebone. It’ll be hard to find a new one.” She commented. 

“Fancy.” He remarked, making no note of the potential price tag. 

Molly turned herself around on his lap. “Loosen the laces.”

Dutch set to work untying the strings, movements delayed and imprecise from drink. It was trying his patience. 

“The complexities of a woman’s wardrobe have always intrigued me…” He said lowly into her ear. “And at times... proved quite irritating. I’d sooner grab my hunting knife. Pull off this second skin just like a young doe’s...” 

Molly’s corset granted her barely enough space for her to gasp. She never quite got used to his way with words. He could still make her blush.

“Is that what I should do?” He asked. “Surely some satin laces cost less at the tailor than… what kind boning did you say it was?”

“W-whalebone.”

“ _ Whale _ bone.” He said as if trying to engrain it into his memory, to press the words in tightly, the same way the bones dug into her flesh.

Molly felt the sharp tip of a knife poke the middle of her back. The sound she made was like that of some small startled animal. Her spine arched away from it as much as it could. She didn’t think he was serious, and now she worried. More about her corset than her own life. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t go that far. 

“Trust me.” He commanded. 

And she did. The knife was sharp, but the laces were tough. It took some force for the blade to break the threads. One by one, row by row, each and every cross was cut in half up and down her back. Molly cringed at the sound. The corset fell off of her. Chopped bits of red ribbon scattered on the floor. She felt her blood rush to the places that the corset had constricted and breathed a sigh of relief.

Dutch sheathed his knife. “Isn’t that better?” He asked her. 

She felt her lungs take in the night air freely and nodded her head vigorously.

“You make me a very happy man, Molly dolly.” He said. She wasn’t sure if he’d feel the same way in the morning, or the next day, or next week.

Did Dutch make her a very happy woman? Lately, she wasn’t sure. She just wasn’t sure.

* * *

Morning came. Molly watched Mister Morgan shave. He had to slouch slightly to look in the mirror from where he stood, leaning his weight against a barrel on which he set his mirror, pomade, and razor. Said razor was now in his hands, carefully cutting around his sculpted jaw. He was handsome. All the girls in camp knew it. But Arthur carried with him a sadness that weighed on his broad shoulders like the boulder that Sisyphus was doomed to carry. Molly wondered why he never married. She heard words exchanged in passing about a girl who broke his heart. It perplexed her to hear of a  _ man _ with a broken heart. A man like Arthur, no less.

Arthur’s eyes moved away from the mirror for a moment and caught her glance. Molly looked away instantly and turned her expression to a scowl, forgetting the momentary fondness she felt for him.

“‘Mornin’, Miss O’Shea.” He said curtly. 

“Good morning, Arthur.”

“You feelin’ better since we got down from that mountain?”

His words struck her like an arrow. She felt warm inside. Was that all it really took for Molly? To feel like someone cared about how she felt?

Instead of nurturing the tiny ember that his simple question had set aglow, Molly stomped on it. “No.” She said bitterly. “I’m miserable.”

Arthur finished a stroke with his razor. He tried to keep from chuckling as not to cut himself. “Sorry to hear it.”

Molly looked at her heeled boots and dug them into the grass. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders and crossed her arms with a huff. 

“If you don’t mind me saying so,” Arthur began, “you seem a little… lonely.”

Molly felt attacked. Her? Being called a loner by a man who never married? “Funny thing for  _ you _ to say.” She scoffed. 

It was a good thing that Molly didn’t see the expression on Arthur’s face. It would have only angered her more to see the lack of effect that her little jab had on him. Her smug defensiveness was short lived. Who was she to talk, nearing the age of twenty eight, she herself unmarried. Dutch van der Linde just wasn’t the marrying type.

Arthur finished up his shave, placing his razor neatly next to the mirror and patting his cheeks with a worn towel. He put his hat over his shaggy hair. “Good day, Miss O’Shea.”

Molly lifted her eyes and saw him walk over to where Dutch and the others had already gathered. They were preparing their horses for travel.

Molly heard Dutch greet Arthur with a warm “There he is!” and watched as the men mounted their horses. And then she realized that she was slouching. Her prized corset was unwearable thanks to Dutch van der Linde’s lust. He promised her new laces. She needed them as soon as possible. 

“Dutch!” Molly called out. 

He turned his horse around halfway and looked at her like whatever she was about to say was the very last thing he needed to hear. 

“If you go to town and there’s a tailor, I need some new laces.” She said, a bit nervously. 

Dutch sighed deeply. “I think you can do without your corset for a while, Miss O’Shea. We’ve got mouths to feed.”

Her lips parted. He  _ promised _ her new laces. 

Molly felt like crying, but she knew it wouldn’t do her any good. Miss Grimshaw would be on her case immediately and berate her until she did something productive. Life at the camp had no time for tears. No time for mistresses either, even if Molly knew that is how all the girls at the camp started out, whether they admitted it or not. She was a  _ lady _ . And they were all whores. 

She noticed that Arthur had stayed back, still adjusting the saddle on his new horse. 

“What did you say you needed, Miss O’Shea?” He asked her. 

That little ember began to glow again. Was that all it took for Molly? To feel like someone cared about her needs?

She tried to hide her smile. “Some laces. For my corset.”

Arthur mounted his steed. “I don’t know nothing about women’s clothing, but I’ll see what I can find.”

Her heart fluttered. She looked away. “Any kind will do. Thank you, Mister Morgan.”

He tipped his hat and gave her a smile. A smile that forgave her, a smile that washed away all of her bitterness. Molly watched him disappear down the path in the trees to catch up with the others, and wondered what unworthy girl was ever foolish enough to break his heart. 


End file.
